Chapter 4

Summary

After he and Finny sleep on the beach, Gene awakens with
the dawn. Finny wakes up soon after and goes for a quick swim before they
head home. They arrive just in time for Gene’s ten-o’clock test in
trigonometry, which he flunks. It is the first time that he has
ever failed a test, but Finny gives him little time to worry about
it: they play blitzball all afternoon and have a meeting of the
Super Suicide Society after dinner.

That night, Gene tries to catch up on his trigonometry
and Finny tells him that he works too hard. Finny suspects him of
trying to be class valedictorian, which Gene denies. Suddenly, however,
he realizes that he does, in fact, want to be valedictorian so that
he can match Finny and all of his athletic awards. Gene asks Finny
how he would feel if he achieved the honor. Finny jokingly replies
that he would kill himself out of envy; Gene feels that the jocular
tone is a mere screen, however, and that there is some truth to
Finny’s words. Believing that the envy in their relationship is
mutual, Gene now perceives a rivalry that he never recognized before.
Highly disturbed, he concludes that all of Finny’s overtures of
friendship and insistence that Gene participate in all of his diversions
are calculated to thwart him in his achievement of academic success
comparable to Finny’s athletic success.

Gene works to become an exceptional student and begins
to surpass his only real rival, Chet Douglass. Finny cannot compete
with Gene academically, but he nonetheless intensifies his own studying. Gene
interprets Finny’s hunkering down as merely an attempt to even out
the sides of the rivalry, since Gene is an excellent student and
a fairly good athlete, while Finny is an excellent athlete but a poor
student. Despite Gene’s suspicions of Finny, the two get along well
in the weeks that follow.

The masters of the school, meanwhile, give up any pretense
of discipline, and one day Gene tells Mr. Prud’homme about his trip
to the beach with Finny. To his surprise, the teacher shows no concern about
their rule-breaking. Gene continues to attend the nightly meetings
of the Suicide Society so as to prevent Finny from suspecting that
their friendship might be flagging.

One night, as Gene studies for a French exam, Finny comes
into the room and announces that Leper Lepellier is planning to
jump from the tree by the river that night and thus become a full
member of their society. Gene doesn’t believe that Leper would ever
dare the feat and concludes that Finny must have talked him into
the attempt in order to interrupt Gene’s studying. Gene complains
that his grade will suffer and begins to storm out to the tree when
Finny tells him casually that he doesn’t have to come along if he
wants to study, as it is only a game. Finny says that he didn’t
realize that Gene ever had to study; he thought his academic prowess
came naturally. He expresses admiration for Gene’s intelligence
and says that he is right to be so serious about something at which
he excels. He tells Gene to stay and study, but Gene replies that
he has studied enough and insists on going to see Leper jump.

As they walk toward the tree, Gene decides that there
must never have been any rivalry between them after all. Moreover,
he thinks that this latest interaction has proved that Finny is
his moral superior: Finny seems incapable of being actively jealous
of anyone. Finny proposes a double jump with Gene, and they strip
and ascend the tree. Finny goes out onto the limb first, and when
Gene steps out, his knees bend and he jostles the limb, causing
Finny to lose his balance and fall with a sickening thud to the
bank. Gene then moves out to the end of the limb and dives into
the water, suddenly fearless.